I wrote Oye Lucky for Shiney

Did you know that actor Shiney Ahuja was the first choice for the role of Lucky in Dibakar Baner-jee’s popular film, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!?

The National Award winning filmmaker, who was in the city on Sunday for the Hindustan Times Delhi 100 film festival, chatted up city folk ahead of the screening of his Abhay Deol-starrer, based on the life of Delhi thug, Bunty aka Devender.

“I knew Shiney from Delhi. He had roamed around the city, studied here, understood the city’s pulse. However, at that time Shiney was busy and we couldn’t afford him financially,” said Banerjee during an on-stage discussion with HT City’s assistant editor Soumya Mukerji, at PVR Rivoli, the venue for the screening.

“Meanwhile, I happened to watch Abhay Deol’s first film (Socha Na Tha), and saw a kind of effortlessness in his acting. So well, it was him!” Banerjee added as he talked about growing up in West Delhi, where he also based the movie.

“If you see Abhay’s smile in the film, it’s the kind of grin you haven’t seen on him in other films. I found out about Bunty from the newspaper while writing Khosla Ka Ghosla. I saw his pictures and interacted with the policemen who caught him. When you see Abhay posing in the film stills, it is very similar to the original pictures of Bunty in the thaana.”